Lingo, Yes, it is wrong for a true audiophile to be happy, ever. Now you've figured that out, you can become a member of the club. We meet with Dr. Kevorkian once a month.
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In my opinion, having heard a few of them, the Schroeder tonearms are indeed very good and very competitive at their price points, but not necessarily better than all of the competitors at those price points. The LT is desirable for someone like me just because of the clever design and brilliant execution, although I cannot imagine that moving the whole pivot as the cartridge traverses the LP is done without adding friction that must be overcome. On the other hand, I am a cheapskate so won't be buying one.
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Cleeds, I am not sure what you are thinking, but just to be as anal as possible, I need to say that pivoting per se is not the cause of the skating force. The skating force is first of all due to the friction between stylus and groove; I am sure we agree on that. The friction is in a direction away from the stylus tip; the friction force wants to pull the stylus and cantilever away from the cartridge body and tonearm. To resist that force, a counter-force is exerted by the cartridge/tonearm in an equal magnitude and opposite direction. The skating force is a vector generated as a result of that force resisting friction, because of the fixed headshell offset angle and also because of lack of tangency of the stylus to the groove. When a straight line can be drawn through the longitudinal axis of the headshell to the pivot point, and when the cartridge in that headshell is tangent to the groove walls, there is no skating force. Among "conventional" pivoted tonearms, only underhung types, which all have zero headshell offset, ever meet that criterion in actual practice. For such tonearms, that condition applies for the brief moment when the stylus is tangent to the groove. For pivoted tonearms that work like the Schroeder LT or apparently the Reed 5T, that condition is constantly met across the surface of the LP, if they are perfectly set up. So, ideally (given diligence in set-up), those latter two tonearms would not generate a skating force.
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As regards your intimation that a pivoted tonearm per se generates a skating force, that is not really correct, if you consider that an underhung tonearm, at the one point on the surface of the LP where the stylus is tangent to the groove, generates no skating force, because no headshell offset angle. It is also not correct for the class of overhung pivoted tonearms that maintain tangency to the groove by virtue of altering the position of the pivot, a la the Schroeder LT. All other overhung pivoted tonearms do generate a skating force by virtue of their overhanging the spindle, combined with their having a headshell offset angle that is not zero.
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Show me a pivoted tonearm that has a fixed zero headshell offset at all points across the surface of an LP, and I will usually show you an underhung tonearm. Underhung tonearms do generate a skating force, along with lots of tracking angle error, even though I like the ones I've heard a lot.
The pivoted tonearms that incorporate mechanisms of one kind or another to maintain tangency to the groove mostly do so by changing the headshell offset angle as the tonearm moves across the LP. The headshell offset angle, so long as it is not zero, per se generates a skating force at all times. That was my point. Now you mentioned it, I looked for photos of the Schroeder LT, which I know works by changing the pivot point rather than headshell offset, and indeed it does have a fixed zero headshell offset angle. So therefore it would generate no skating force. Maybe the Reed works similarly; I haven't googled a photo. There was some momentary fuss about the Schroeder LT when it first appeared, but you don't hear much about it these days, maybe because Fremer didn't fall in love with it. Pretty cool idea.
So why did you disagree with Mijostyn in the first place? Mijo did say that pivoted tonearms that maintain tangency to the groove generate no skating force, which we now can see is partly correct, for some examples but not others.
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Uberwaltz, The analogy you gave for why measuring errors are magnified in proportion to distance is exactly what I have in mind as a reason why errors made in mounting 12-inch tonearms might be more consequential than errors made in mounting 9-inch tonearms (and also mounting and aligning cartridges on either type). But why do you conclude that this proposition "does not seem to be borne out in practice with tonearms"?
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Cleeds makes a good point that I’d never considered. Any of these fancy pivoted tone arms that incorporate a device to keep the stylus tangent to the groove at all points across the surface of the LP would nevertheless generate a skating force. In this case, the skating force would result from the constant fact that there is a head shell offset angle which is changing all throughout play.
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Forgot to say to Elliot, that Blackbird tonearm is "controversial" to say the least. You might have asked here about it before taking the leap. I think Chakster has some info. I hope you'll be happy with it.
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Mijo, Your objection to the rumor I repeated is noted, but I need to see and/or do the math before you can convince me. Some pretty obsessive tonearm alignment persons on the internet have claimed the opposite of what you say. My guess is that it depends upon what kind of mounting error is made, as to the effect of that error on a short tonearm vs a long tonearm, but like I said, I haven't done the math. And I don't want to do the math. I am kind of an alignment nihilist in the first place. I really don't give a hoot.
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It has been said that a tiny error in setting up a 12 inch arm has greater consequences for tonearm alignment error, than the same error made in setting up a 9 inch arm. I actually have never bothered to investigate the truth of this axiom, but it is worth noting.
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